AlterNet: Thanks to Sarah Palin, We Get to See the Cruelness of the GOP as It Really Is

[marmar]

Thanks to Sarah Palin, We Get to See the Cruelness of the GOP as It Really Is

By Larry Beinhart, AlterNet. Posted November 3, 2008.

Palin has helped reveal to the public pit-bull snarl that rouses GOP supporters to cry out, "Traitor!" against Obama, and "Kill him!"



It was Jesus Christ, if Matthew is to be believed, who said, "Love thine enemy." It is in that spirit that I write this belated valentine to Sarah Palin.

Sarah, I love you for having revealed unto the media the snarling heart of the beast that is the base (and the soul) of the Republican Party. Yes, you have the lipstick and the heels, not to mention the calves and bosoms, that send Republican men into swoons, but you have more; the pit-bull snarl that rouses your supporters to cry out, "Traitor!" against Obama, and "Kill him!"

George Bush kept those folks in their kennels, ran as a "compassionate conservative," and always masked his most heinous plans in double speak. Bush the Elder, Ronald Reagan, and even Richard Nixon never explicitly ran on hate and fear of "the other." They used words that were coded enough that it was possible to pretend that they were true.

But now the beast is loose.

The Republican Party likes to remember Abraham Lincoln. And so they should. It's a nice memory and brings credit to them. As does the accidental ascension of Teddy Roosevelt, environmentalist and basher of corporations. Back in the 1950s and '60s, their party included such figures as Dwight Eisenhower -- whose reputation grows ever better in retrospect -- Nelson Rockefeller, who built New York's state university system, and New York City mayor John Lindsey.

But there is another strand that runs through their history. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/election08/105807/thanks_to_sarah_palin%2C_we_get_to_see_the_cruelness_of_the_gop_as_it_really_is/

[LisaLynne]

1. As nauseating as it is to watch ...

these people have gotten away with thinking and believing these things, whispering in codes to each other, for far too long. I've always felt that if the American people at large could ever see in broad daylight exactly what it is that the GOP really stands for -- what they pander to -- then a LOT more people would turn away from them. Palin is actually bringing all of that into plain sight.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. This election is finally shining a light on the ugliness of how the right wing thinks.

Finally!

[yurbud]

11. the creeepiest thing about Bush years was conservative pols started acting on hate rhetoric

I used to listen to Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and some of those guys, partly because I thought it was hyperbole and just venting their spleen, not actually calling for action.

Then when Bush came to power, and especially after 9/11, I realized that the GOP politicians were enacting into policy the most extreme things their mouthpieces in the right wing media said.

If they thought they could get away with it, they probably would have gone Rwanda on the left. As I watched one movie on Rwanda, the talk radio there referred to Tutsis as "cockroaches" who needed to be exterminated, which didn't sound much further out than saying people at Air America should be rounded up, or Ann Coulter saying Tim McVeigh should have blown up the New York Times.

The first time the right really scared me was listening to Pat Buchanan's Kultur Kampf speech at the 1992 GOP convention. That seemed like a fucking Nazi rally compared to anything I had heard in American politics in my lifetime.

Today, Pat seems like an island of reason amid the Khmer Rouge of the GOP, and at the height of Bush's popularity, they were doing things to political enemies that Coulter, Limbaugh, and Liddy could have scripted, like putting Ted Kennedy on a no fly list, the secretary of labor calling my teachers union a terrorist organization, shutting Democrats out of the conference committees on bills, and sending the feds after Democrats who fled Texas to deny the legislature a quorum during a sham redistricting.

[chelsea0011]

3. You Tube is just filled with brave souls who took their camcorders to Palin rallies

and interviewed the unwashed masses. Some of the documentaries are truly disturbing.

[FamousMortimer]

4. Great article

Now I have an image of Palin stabbing a dead hog while holding forth on what it means to be a real American. Good stuff. If you haven't seen Gangs of New York you won't know what I'm talking about.

That is also one of my favorite movies to recommend to people who are all wistful about the America that used to be and of course never really was.

[Froward69]

5. Isnt it Ironic

that they claim Obama is not a citizen then scream traitor???

you have to be a citizen to be a traitor...

[EFerrari]

6. Any sane person who votes with the Republicans has to look at Palin

and wonder when they all lost their minds.

[EFerrari]

7. dupe

[marmar]

9. That's alright.....It's worth repeating.

:)

[TexasObserver]

8. Yes. Absolutely. She has revealed the ugliness that is the GOP.

All those racist, vile, disgusting folks ARE their base.

[yurbud]

10. best part: LBJ & segregation:

Lyndon Johnson is the pivotal figure, both heroic and deeply tragic. The Democratic Party's dirty public secret was that its political hegemony rested on the Solid South, still refusing to vote Republican out of hatred of Lincoln. Johnson knew that if he pushed through the Civil Rights Act his party would lose the South for a generation. Or more. His heroism is that he did anyway. No, he did not end the race issue, but he broke the back of segregation.

The Republicans saw their opportunity. They pursued the Southern Strategy, wooing resentful whites with great success.

But two things happened.

Racism became less and less tenable. The generation that cherished it has grown old. That pillar of the Republican Party is crumbling.